Neuroscience
Yes, it's true!
"That's Not Baby Talk It's Your Kid Testing Her Grasp of Chinese "
Sharon Begley. Wall Street Journal. Aug 11, 2006. pg. A.7
Not much to post, since the WSJ isn't free online, but here's the lead paragraph:
"IF A BABY GROWING up in an English-speaking home squeals 'a my pencil!' dad might correct him, saying, 'That's "my pencil," sweetie.' If a toddler points to an older brother and complains, 'tickled me,' mom might say, 'You mean, "Joey tickled me." ' And the toddler who declares, 'I don't want no spinach,' is told to say, 'I don't want any spinach.' "
A newly-appointed University of Pennsylvania linguist, Charles Yang, argues that these kids are actually speaking perfect grammar *of another language*. In his new book called The infinite gift : how children learn and unlearn the languages of the world he writes that "Children's language differs from ours not only because they occasionally speak imperfect English but because they speak perfect Chinese" (according to the WSJ) -- and this is consistent with Noam Chomsky's theory of universal grammar.
Hmmm.
(thanks to Ross Buck for the article)
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Neuroscience
Universal Grammar in the Wall Street Journal?!
Yes, it's true!
"That's Not Baby Talk It's Your Kid Testing Her Grasp of Chinese "
Sharon Begley. Wall Street Journal. Aug 11, 2006. pg. A.7
Not much to post, since the WSJ isn't free online, but here's the lead paragraph:
"IF A BABY GROWING up in an English-speaking home squeals 'a my pencil!' dad might correct him, saying, 'That's "my pencil," sweetie.' If a toddler points to an older brother and complains, 'tickled me,' mom might say, 'You mean, "Joey tickled me." ' And the toddler who declares, 'I don't want no spinach,' is told to say, 'I don't want any spinach.' "
A newly-appointed University of Pennsylvania linguist, Charles Yang, argues that these kids are actually speaking perfect grammar *of another language*. In his new book called The infinite gift : how children learn and unlearn the languages of the world he writes that "Children's language differs from ours not only because they occasionally speak imperfect English but because they speak perfect Chinese" (according to the WSJ) -- and this is consistent with Noam Chomsky's theory of universal grammar.
Hmmm.
(thanks to Ross Buck for the article)
- Watch A Movie, Learn A New Language...?
How cool would it be if you could learn a new language simply by watching subtitled foreign films? So far, research has shown that you can certainly learn new vocabulary this way, but not grammar. Now Sven Van Lommel and colleagues at the University...
- Colin Blakemore: "the House I Grew Up In" (bbc Radio 4)
Audio available from The BBC: Listen From the show's webpage: "Neurobiologist Professor Colin Blakemore was a war baby brought up in devastated Coventry. His two-up two-down home had the first TV in the street on which he lived next door to relatives...
- Older Brains Can Be Spiffy, Too!
Between the frisson of excitement at the upcoming testimony of Andy Fastow at the Enron trial and the anxious waiting over the BlackBerry patent dispute, today's Wall Street Journal devotes its Science Journal column by Sharon Begley to an ode to...
- The Game Brain
The Wall Street Journal today has an article on the front page of its Marketplace section about Nintendo's entry to The Game Brain trend: Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day. Nintendo's Brain-Training Game Targets Older Players Ginny...
- Chomsky To Speak In Support Of The Endangered Language Fund
Noam Chomsky is giving a lecture in New Haven on November 15th. This is a benefit lecture for the Endangered Language Fund, to raise money for the documentation and revitalization of nearly extinct languages. His talk is entitled "Why Are There So Many...